How blue can she get?
Christine Santelli releases scorcher of a CD

Armed with a growl that could snuff out an oven fire, Jersey City's Christine Santelli has finally released her long-awaited "Live in Paris, at The Chesterfield Cafe" CD on Rapid Records. It was worth the wait.

Backed by a syncopated swat team consisting of Mike Lattrell on keyboards and mandolin, Hiromasa Suzuki on guitar, Mike Bernal on bass, and Matt Mousseau on drums, the woman had the audience howling and barking on the 11-minute roller coaster, "How Blue Can You Get?" Lattrell stretches ideas without tiring them out, Santelli lets the festering wounds of betrayal lie bare and throbbing. Without oversinging, she coveys the pain and anger of the blues, modulating from husky sensuality to shouts of abandonment like the power of the tides.

Suzuki's work on "Turtle Blues" and the funky "Shaky Ground" produces tight, clean riffs minus wasted meandering. He and Lattrell manage to flash substansive yet showy flourishes within the context of the jam, and boy does this group jam. Chris Smither's "Love Me Like A Man" makes one imagine Santelli standing on a New Orleans street at 3 a.m. dragging on a cig, illuminated by lonely yellowish light from a lone streetlamp, oozing lust.

A groove is established on "Shaky Ground" by bassist Bernal and Mousseau that just deepens into a trench of funk. Mousseau provides covering fire for Lattrell's looping solos, which tap dance through melodies like Gregory Hines on ginseng. The old standard "Caledonia" has Santelli at her singer/actress best, not just shouting, but pushing across the sense of frustration. Her "I'd Rather Go Blind" begins slow and pensive and just keeps building to a frenzied wail that has the audience hooting in excitement.

She does well by two Willie Dixon songs, "Big Boss Man" and "Evil," which winds up the CD on a blistering note, with both Lattrell and Suzuki igniting dormant volcanoes of riffs. Think Santana crossed with Brian Auger, fronted by Janis. A staccato beat leads into these whirlwind solos, nasty and evil as locusts coming off a fast.

She and her band are due back in a couple of weeks, after a month in South Africa, and hopefully, if Hoboken relaxes it's fire laws, maybe they'll do a club here. Bring your own asbestos.

 By Joe Del Priore

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